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Saturday, August 15, 2015

Tara and I try to get out to the range every Friday. More often than not, we don't make it. Lives get in the way, don'tcha know. When we do get out, its fabulous, but this last time was even more fabulous than usual. We had five guns and no time constraints. I'm not sure it gets better than that.

Choices. Lots of choices.

Since we haven't done much shooting, and since the last time we went out we both shot like we'd never held a gun, we worked on the basics. I didn't bring enough dots for the Dot Torture, so I made up my own drill.

3 2" targets and 5 1" targets at 7 yards.

I forgot to take a "before" picture, but you can see my dot set-up.

Using a normal shooting stance, one shot at each target T1-T8. Next round, strong-hand only, one shot at each target T1-T8. 3rd round, weak-hand only, one shot at each target T1-T3, then T8-T4 (reverse order). Last round, weak-hand, two hands, T1-T3, then T8-T4.

I was a bit high on each of the targets T5-T7. And who the hell knows what happened on T8.

After I finished my round (and felt pretty good after my performance with the Dot Torture a couple of weeks ago), I played with some of Tara's guns. Boy, I love those cowboy guns. Love them. Unfortunately, they're an expensive habit I don't need to take up.

And just for shiggles I emptied my last magazine at the middle of the target and called it a day.

Not the best target of my life, but I'll take it.

Remember when I said we had a fabulous day? Tara mentioned that she needed some work with the AR to get more familiar with it and I remembered that Double Tap had the sim up and running, so to make our day even more fabulous, we headed to FiTS.

Double Tap put her through her paces with accuracy drills before running her through some scenarios.

When she got tired, I took a turn. I did pretty well. The two tactical rifle skills classes I took were helpful. It's been a year or so since I took my last AR class, but the repetition in class helped build some muscle memory that I was able to tap into. There's another class coming up that I want to take, but it conflicts with an event I'm in charge of, so I can't attend.

It will be another couple of weeks before our schedules match up and we can hit the range again, but I'm looking forward to it.

Monday, August 10, 2015

·If
you comply with a law enforcement officer’s direction, the officer will in all
likelihood communicate by words or actions his or her appreciation

·No
one has a Constitutional right to disobey a lawful command by a law enforcement
officer

·No
one has a Constitutional right to resist, delay or obstruct a law enforcement
officer acting upon his or her lawful authority

·“Not every push or shove, even if it may later seem unnecessary in the
peace of a judge’s chamber, violates the Fourth Amendment.”(Foster v. Metropolitan Airports Commission,
1990)

·If
you assault an officer, don’t be surprised if you are assaulted more

·At
the scene of every police response, there is at least one firearm

·Attempting
to disarm a law enforcement officer of his or her firearm constitutes deadly
force, and can justifiably get you hurt bad

·If
you shoot at an officer, expect to be shot at yourself

·If
you shoot at an officer, and then get yourself shot in return, you’re not the
“victim.”

You see, it really isn’t that
difficult.

Now, to be fair, let me make a few
other points:

·Not
all law enforcement officers should be one

·Not
all competent law enforcement officers are as gracious as they should be

·Not
all use of force by law enforcement officers is constitutionally justified

·Not
all use of deadly force by law enforcement is constitutionally justified

·Unconstitutional
use of force by a law enforcement officer should, and usually does, result in
bad consequences for the officer

·All
uses of force by law enforcement are by nature “ugly”

This is why
after serious use of force by law enforcement officers there comes a
professional investigation.Most (not
all) use of force, once the matter runs the course through the criminal justice
system, turn out in favor of the law enforcement officer(s) who used
force.That’s because the courts have to
ascertain if the use of force was “reasonable.”The courts ask:

·Did
the officer(s) follow Constitutional law?

·Did
the officer(s) follow statutory law?

·Did
the officer(s) follow their training?

·Did
the officer(s) follow departmental policy?

The problem
is, however, no matter whether the officer’s use of force was reasonable or
not, no one wants to wait for the facts to be established.Clear-heads are not wanted before, during, or
even after the professional investigation.

Think of
the Michael Brown incident in Ferguson, Missouri.Brown apparently tried to disarm an officer
and paid the ultimate price for it.Opportunists,
activists, hucksters, race-baiters and the national news media fanned the
flames.The “hands up, don’t shoot”
theme was apocryphal.When the facts
were looked at, the District Attorney decided he could not in good conscience
prosecute the officer, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder could find no
basis to advance a violation of Civil Rights laws.

What a shock.With great thrill, the news media today
(Monday, August 10, 2015) informs us that a police officer in Ferguson,
Missouri, on Sunday, August 9, shot a black protester at the “mostly peaceful
demonstration” marking the one-year anniversary of the “killing an unarmed
black man, Michael Brown, by a white cop.”Oh yeah, and looking further into the story one learns that the “victim”
had shot at officers.

I do hope Michael Brown’s family can
one day find peace, but I don’t think they will find it on the streets of
Ferguson.

Perhaps one day the clear-heads will
dominate this conversation, and I will not have to suffer so many fools.